State issues health advisory on eating sportfish

Fish caught in local lakes and rivers can be a healthy addition to your diet, but only when chosen with discretion, according to a statewide sport fishing and eating advisory and guidelines released Thursday.

Tests from 272 lakes and reservoirs and more than 2,600 individual fish across California provided the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment with details about which fish are the healthiest for specific ages and genders.

Rainbow trout and small brown trout have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids and lower levels of methylmercury, making them healthy for women ages 18-45 and children under 18.

In contrast, mercury levels in bass, carp and larger brown trout lead OEHHA to recommend children and women 18-45 avoid those species altogether, while women over age 45 and men are advised to eat no more than one serving per week.

Women of "childbearing age" and children can eat two servings of rainbow trout per week and one of bullhead, catfish, bluegill or brown trout 16 inches or shorter. Men, and women over 45, can safely eat six servings a week of rainbow trout and two servings per week of bullhead, catfish, bluegill or brown trout 16 inches or shorter.

The State Water Resources Control Board's Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program, the Toxic Substances Monitoring Program and the Fish Mercury Project collaborated to create the fishing and eating advisory and guidelines for California.

The organizations will continue more in-depth studies on the toxins that build up in the bodies of fish and, if consumed, can build up in the bodies of people as well.

Specific safe eating guidelines for fish from the lower Feather River advise women ages 18-45 and children ages 1-16 to avoid eating black bass, catfish, pikeminnow, striped bass and white sturgeon. This group can safely eat two to three servings per week of American shad, chinook salmon and steelhead trout, or one serving per week of carp, sunfish or sucker.

From Lake Oroville, women and children are advised to avoid bass, channel catfish and white catfish. They can eat two servings per week of bluegill or green sunfish and one per week of carp or coho salmon.